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Stories of three decades;
H ardback with dustcover /----1936--modern library book----- very good dustcover//-- text//clean--ships quick- -skuzz51
567 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1936
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About the author
Thomas Mann
2,165 books5,330 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
See also:
Serbian: Tomas Man
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate in 1929, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.
See also:
Serbian: Tomas Man
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate in 1929, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 22, 2019
Thomas Mann is a difficult author to approach. Your choices at the bookstore are usually Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus, or Death in Venice. Of course, like any sensible reader, I began with Death in Venice. I was immediately struck by his style, and over the course of years the initial awe I felt reading that first novella only deepened into reverence. Unlike Hermann Hesse, one of the other German authors to receive the Nobel Prize, Mann's writing transcends its own content, engages in deep philosophical discussions and simultaneously possesses lyrical resonance. Hesse is still one of my favorite writers, but I cannot compare the experience of reading his work with that of Mann. Where Proust wrote with heartfelt consistent brilliance, constructing sentences of vast architectural significance, Mann never wrote a bad sentence, at least as far as my minuscule understanding of structure will allow me to comprehend, and wrote the polished, heady sort of prose Kafka and Calvino could only imitate - in my opinion, while pushing Proust's invalid worldview into the open air, until it inevitably descends back into interior explorations.
Whether or not you will enjoy Mann, I think, does not depend on your enjoyment of his sentences alone, for his stories, characters and occasional humor are all vastly superior to the norm. You will meet clowns and dogs, families and artists, cast with the precision of Chekhov into universal human dramas of great power and elegance. He does not often write from the perspective of women, and many of his protagonists are similar to each other - that is, they are the types of people Mann most likely knew, and he sought to portray them in semi-authentic ways.
Perhaps it is only necessary to say that you cannot go wrong starting with this collection. For those who are not sure they want to tackle the breathtaking masterpiece of Magic Mountain or the seemingly infinite difficulty of Joseph and His Brothers, you will find a lot of literary manna waiting in this generous collection. He demonstrated that it is not only possible, but necessary to create moving scenes on the panoramic canvas of everyday life.
Whether or not you will enjoy Mann, I think, does not depend on your enjoyment of his sentences alone, for his stories, characters and occasional humor are all vastly superior to the norm. You will meet clowns and dogs, families and artists, cast with the precision of Chekhov into universal human dramas of great power and elegance. He does not often write from the perspective of women, and many of his protagonists are similar to each other - that is, they are the types of people Mann most likely knew, and he sought to portray them in semi-authentic ways.
Perhaps it is only necessary to say that you cannot go wrong starting with this collection. For those who are not sure they want to tackle the breathtaking masterpiece of Magic Mountain or the seemingly infinite difficulty of Joseph and His Brothers, you will find a lot of literary manna waiting in this generous collection. He demonstrated that it is not only possible, but necessary to create moving scenes on the panoramic canvas of everyday life.
February 14, 2008
H. T. Lowe-Porter translated this edition. She's my favorite translator of Mann's work. She lived at the same time he did and they corresponded. It bothers me that, merely because other translators were born at such a time as to be alive today, their work has been superceding hers.
I don't think anybody else has retranslated this collection, inasmuch as this volume was created for an English-speaking readership by the publisher, Alfred A Knopf, but I imagine most of the stories have been rendered into English by other people.
Mann wrote a preface to this collection. I bet H. T. Lowe-Porter translated it as well. Listen to the eloquence of this first prefatory paragraph:
"It was a good and gratifying idea of my American publisher to present to the English-reading public a single volume containing all the short stories which I have written. And the fruition of the idea, which purely as a matter of book-making promises to be a brilliant achievement, will put the firm of Alfred A. Knopf in the van of all my publishers. But likewise to the author this edition gives peculiar pleasure, presenting as it does a survey of his activities in this field for three decades, a whole generation, almost a whole life-span of artist and man -- an autobiography, as it were, in the guise of fable. And this I have tried to express in the title STORIES OF THREE DECADES, which I have suggested to the publishers."
So, there we have it: A preface by Mann specifically for a book commissioned by Americans. Does he not seem pleased?
"Death In Venice" is here, of course, but so is a really stunning opener, "Little Herr Friedemann." MTV should have made a video of this compact little study in cruelty. "Mario and the Magician" is here. It's title alone makes it memorable. I've seen "Mario and the Magician" demoted recently. People keep saying Mann couldn't write short fiction. Have they read "The Blood of the Walsungs?" They'll find it in STORIES OF THREE DECADES. I think it's a perfect story.
I hope this is still in print. It might not be. You might find it in the public library. Get ahold of this fine example of book-making from 1936 before it's re-translated and replaced. (If you don't want to read it, at least just get to the library and notice the sewn signatures in the binding, the cloth covers with the burlap outer layer and the evidence of indentations made by the printing machine. Books looked and felt like books in mid-twentieth-century America!)
I don't think anybody else has retranslated this collection, inasmuch as this volume was created for an English-speaking readership by the publisher, Alfred A Knopf, but I imagine most of the stories have been rendered into English by other people.
Mann wrote a preface to this collection. I bet H. T. Lowe-Porter translated it as well. Listen to the eloquence of this first prefatory paragraph:
"It was a good and gratifying idea of my American publisher to present to the English-reading public a single volume containing all the short stories which I have written. And the fruition of the idea, which purely as a matter of book-making promises to be a brilliant achievement, will put the firm of Alfred A. Knopf in the van of all my publishers. But likewise to the author this edition gives peculiar pleasure, presenting as it does a survey of his activities in this field for three decades, a whole generation, almost a whole life-span of artist and man -- an autobiography, as it were, in the guise of fable. And this I have tried to express in the title STORIES OF THREE DECADES, which I have suggested to the publishers."
So, there we have it: A preface by Mann specifically for a book commissioned by Americans. Does he not seem pleased?
"Death In Venice" is here, of course, but so is a really stunning opener, "Little Herr Friedemann." MTV should have made a video of this compact little study in cruelty. "Mario and the Magician" is here. It's title alone makes it memorable. I've seen "Mario and the Magician" demoted recently. People keep saying Mann couldn't write short fiction. Have they read "The Blood of the Walsungs?" They'll find it in STORIES OF THREE DECADES. I think it's a perfect story.
I hope this is still in print. It might not be. You might find it in the public library. Get ahold of this fine example of book-making from 1936 before it's re-translated and replaced. (If you don't want to read it, at least just get to the library and notice the sewn signatures in the binding, the cloth covers with the burlap outer layer and the evidence of indentations made by the printing machine. Books looked and felt like books in mid-twentieth-century America!)
October 30, 2022
From "The Fight Between Jappe and Do Escobar" about the dancing and deportment instruction, Herr Knaak, and his "equivocal position in the eyes of martially- and masculinely-minded youth":
There were suspicions harboured by militant youth on the score of Herr Knaak's character and mode of life, and his exaggerated airs did nothing to allay them. Of course, he was a grown-up man (he was even, comically enough, said to have a wife and children in Hamburg);
The dancing teacher from Hamburg, Francois Knaak, whose "brown eyes glanced about him with languid pleasure in their own beauty", also appears in "Tonio Kroger" where he initiates boys and girls into the manners of deportment and social elegance. "What an unmentionable monkey!" thought Tonio Kroger.
Many of these stories dwell on the developments and progress of youth. Felix Krull, reminiscing about his childhood: "I often amused myself by a sort of introspection which even today has not lost all charm for me." One can see Thomas Mann himself in these simple words and the habit of introspection. "Ideas of this kind were certainly calculated to isolate me from my schoolmates and companions, who of course spent their time in more commonplace and traditional occupations."
The short story "Felix Krull" (1911) was a seed, and later expanded into the novel "Confession of Felix Krull, Confidence Man" which Mann was working on at the time of his death.
This volume includes "Death in Venice" but I did not read it again at this time. It is slightly peculiar today to consider "Death in Venice" as a short story.
There were suspicions harboured by militant youth on the score of Herr Knaak's character and mode of life, and his exaggerated airs did nothing to allay them. Of course, he was a grown-up man (he was even, comically enough, said to have a wife and children in Hamburg);
The dancing teacher from Hamburg, Francois Knaak, whose "brown eyes glanced about him with languid pleasure in their own beauty", also appears in "Tonio Kroger" where he initiates boys and girls into the manners of deportment and social elegance. "What an unmentionable monkey!" thought Tonio Kroger.
Many of these stories dwell on the developments and progress of youth. Felix Krull, reminiscing about his childhood: "I often amused myself by a sort of introspection which even today has not lost all charm for me." One can see Thomas Mann himself in these simple words and the habit of introspection. "Ideas of this kind were certainly calculated to isolate me from my schoolmates and companions, who of course spent their time in more commonplace and traditional occupations."
The short story "Felix Krull" (1911) was a seed, and later expanded into the novel "Confession of Felix Krull, Confidence Man" which Mann was working on at the time of his death.
This volume includes "Death in Venice" but I did not read it again at this time. It is slightly peculiar today to consider "Death in Venice" as a short story.
July 15, 2025
My favorites, excluding novellas, are Little Lizzy & Tristan. (The latter reminds me of my lovely, gentle Grandma.)
August 17, 2009
What a wonderful introduction to Mann was this collection of short stories. From the tragic, 'Little Herr Friedemann', to the curious obsession of Herr Aschenbach in, 'Death in Venice', this book made for a compelling read. Anyone who has ever had an emotional attachment to their pet will love the serio-comic,'A Man and His Dog'.
Being my first exposure to Mann I cannot comment on the competency of this versus that translation but H.T. Lowe-Porter magnificently captures the genius and eloquence of Mann. At times it was the manner of the telling which, more than the story itself, fired my imagination.
Being my first exposure to Mann I cannot comment on the competency of this versus that translation but H.T. Lowe-Porter magnificently captures the genius and eloquence of Mann. At times it was the manner of the telling which, more than the story itself, fired my imagination.
June 16, 2017
Fantastic collection of short stories. Thomas Mann was such a great writer and this collection really demonstrates that fact.
April 20, 2020
A great collection.
November 4, 2019
its supposed to be a sort of anthology autobiography, clearly hes writing the same stories over n over with better results each time, culminating in the goods like death in venice, mario, disorder&sorrow... magic mountain is more or less the epitome of all hes working to in this. also present are Fiorenza, a renaissance pastiche, felix krull, the first quarter of the novel he finished 40 years later, man and dog, a goethe parody starring his pet dog
October 10, 2016
*** Incomplete read; Ending in "Tonio Kröger" with a few later stories. Possibly 30% only. 10/2016. Left for future read.
The stories I have read from this collection are vignettes from individual's life and their bodily and spiritual demise. In the definitive absence of hints of secular Positivism or Salvation from religion, these individuals go to their demise knowingly or being caught unaware of their own frailty.
The writing style resembles more of Maugham than Woolf, a more traditional approach to set up the story with descriptions and authorial presence.
*** Reading Notes ***
1. “Little Herr Friedeman” reminds me of Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage”. A young man of very limited body experience completely crushed by the unkind combination of being powerfully grasped by an erotic fascination that he does not understand let alone to control, and the cruelty of the beloved in contemptuous rejection.
2. "Disillusionment": Instead of exhilarating or moaning in life's high and low points, the protagonist asks: is that all there is? That is the problem of being a connoisseur of sensations in living. That particularly artistic detachment, a callous and modern stoicism, goes directly into nihilism.
3. "To the Churchyard": in the vein of anthropomorphic "Life" encountered the ruined "Praisegod".
4. "Felix Krull": the grandson of a "Maggotson" who goes through life along the family line of dissipation and dissembling. At an early point, the "artful" becomes fraudulent and corruptive.
5. "Death in Venice": death and aesthetics woven into a rich tapestry of thoughts and consciousness (but this reader does not understand even a bit).
8/24 "Little Lizzy" -- What a ironic study of cruelty played on an insecure, uxorious, physically ungainly husband.
The stories I have read from this collection are vignettes from individual's life and their bodily and spiritual demise. In the definitive absence of hints of secular Positivism or Salvation from religion, these individuals go to their demise knowingly or being caught unaware of their own frailty.
The writing style resembles more of Maugham than Woolf, a more traditional approach to set up the story with descriptions and authorial presence.
*** Reading Notes ***
1. “Little Herr Friedeman” reminds me of Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage”. A young man of very limited body experience completely crushed by the unkind combination of being powerfully grasped by an erotic fascination that he does not understand let alone to control, and the cruelty of the beloved in contemptuous rejection.
2. "Disillusionment": Instead of exhilarating or moaning in life's high and low points, the protagonist asks: is that all there is? That is the problem of being a connoisseur of sensations in living. That particularly artistic detachment, a callous and modern stoicism, goes directly into nihilism.
3. "To the Churchyard": in the vein of anthropomorphic "Life" encountered the ruined "Praisegod".
4. "Felix Krull": the grandson of a "Maggotson" who goes through life along the family line of dissipation and dissembling. At an early point, the "artful" becomes fraudulent and corruptive.
5. "Death in Venice": death and aesthetics woven into a rich tapestry of thoughts and consciousness (but this reader does not understand even a bit).
8/24 "Little Lizzy" -- What a ironic study of cruelty played on an insecure, uxorious, physically ungainly husband.
July 17, 2022
I read this very volume back when I was 17/18 and carried it around with me for years one of my favourite books. Of course I lost it years ago but I have recently reread many of the stories and still found great pleasure in them. I can not judge them - I still think Mann is a good writer and worth reading - but he is too much a part of my youth and growing up to be properly dispassionate. It seems almost incredible that when I was a teenager he was my first 'gay' author - well I was a teenager at boarding school in 1970s Ireland - may be there were gay books available, I didn't know of any, straight sex was hard to come by in print back then - but I remember reading the Tonio Kroger story and recognising myself in what Tonio experienced. So for these stories are part of my youth and to precious to judge but wonderful to revisit.
Final note Death in Venice is in this collection but I did reread it - I have always had conflicted feelings about it so I hope to reread it and comment on it later.
Final note Death in Venice is in this collection but I did reread it - I have always had conflicted feelings about it so I hope to reread it and comment on it later.
August 20, 2018
Mann is no doubt a terrific writer, and several of these stories, including (of course) Death in Venice are terrific. Unfortunately, a number of the stories have not aged well in their prose style. Mann understands the human psyche and story telling, but sometimes the writing is too mannered for its own good.
October 7, 2020
I thought it was time to re-read these Shorty stories and novellas. With skill, irony, and intellect Mann always entertains with high quality literature.
July 10, 2024
Some were good, some were not as enjoyable to read. There are some that deserve mention and make it worthwhile.
February 10, 2012
Just as great as I remembered it. I enjoyed this book of short stories all over again!
Read
September 13, 2011I only read this because Death in Venice was everywhere when I was in college. That story turns out to be rather creepy. Otherwise this was OK.
January 21, 2013
Exquisite language...subtle and seductive
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews